A Helmsman's Lament
by Canadihipster
Summary: This could be the end of everything. "So. Why don't we go somewhere only we know?"


In truth, it wasn't fair. It never would be, would it? Things came and went and, in the end, that was that. The End. Fin. Happily Ever After was such a cliche thing, such an odd, unrealistic thing to crave. What did it even imply? Happiness, of course, eternally. What happened when they grew older, when it was no longer easy to awaken in the afternoon, when the sopor slime brought one so, so close to death it was more of a tease than a comfort? If anyone was unsure, it was him.

Cerise. It was the colour of one of his eyes. It was the colour that ran through veins marked defective by society, the colour that had once flushed cheeks and spilled forth from tear ducts and splattered across his face during a particularly rough fight. He could remember so many names for the same colour: claret, erubescent, rubicund, incarnadine.  
Red.  
Bright, cherry red.  
It was the colour of what he felt when a hand brushed against his, when a familiar smile was tossed in his way, a laugh followed close behind. It was the colour that was more than a colour - It was an emotion, it was a feeling, it was warm and safe yet bright, so, so bright, so spontaneous. An explosion, excitement! It was fierce and it stood out, cerise would put its foot down and laugh, shout to the world how it felt and pop with enthusiasm! It was like lightening, it was like poppy flowers on a grave amidst a barren wasteland, the last cobblestone remaining uncracked, sturdy and welcome to be stood on. It brought a smile in the way it sucked those around it together, completed and complimented while still holding its own.  
Cerise was a colour that gave him life and simultaneously took it away.  
Cerise was a colour he both adored and despised.  
Cerise was his love.

_Oh, simple thing. Where have you gone?_

Sometimes, he forgot. Which wasn't exactly terrible - Forgetting wasn't so bad. He could just not recollect how happy he once was, what it felt like to be so, so close to freedom, to have the ability to reach with all his might, to push and shove. He could forget that the current was not all he had ever known. There was once a time he saw many lands, he flinched from cold rain against his nose or collapsed into it, glad for the relief from the heat. There was once a time he had strong, thin muscles, a time he remembered a hand brushing small, gentle fingers against his back. They'd been alone together that day, her and him, and it was something he'd been glad for. He was wounded. He'd hid them, hid them carefully and concealed them easily but, as soon as he had the chance, took to patching them.  
Her nails had been so long and her hair so tangled. She'd frowned, he remembered the creases of her forehead and sometimes he forgot, but she had traced his muscles, murmured quiet apologies at his scars. It was appalling that he could forget such docile, sweet moments, such simple pleasures - But he did, on occasion.

Most of the time, he remembered. It would drive him to mania when it flooded him, when it came in painful waves. He'd scream and laugh and strain against the bioware, snarl and spit until his throat bled, choke on saliva and deep yellow.  
Yellow.  
It was such an ugly colour, such an ugly shade he had. It was putrid, it was rich in the sense of vomit. It made him think of headaches, of the front of his skull filled with pressure and pounding. It was the colour of wrinkling one's nose and the curling of the lip, baring fangs in disgust and gagging. It was the colour that almost every flower, every plant turned when it began to wither. It was rot, maggots, it was skin crawling and festering and pussing. Bile. Auric,auriferous, ochroid. Aurulent was the exact shade, really. It didn't matter, it was nothing to spend too much time mulling over, even if he had all the time the universe could offer. It did not matter anymore. For all he cared, the entire galaxy and those surpassing could be entirely monochrome.

And what if you viewed the world in blacks and greys?! What if you had no sense of colour, few understandings of shades - Would you still believe this, would you still force this upon us, upon yourself?! Why?! What purpose have you, what right have you to decide the fate of another simply because of the shade which keeps them alive, because of that which they are and they cannot change? You blame us and expect passiveness, you expect tolerance and, when not given such immediately, you result to brutal violence! You see us all as unintellectual fiends, as if every last one of us is out to get you and - How dare you? How DARE you?!

He could no longer remember his voice. Once, it had echoed so clearly through his mind. He could recall it no matter what was going on around him, no matter what was tormenting him or paining him. Once Upon A Time, wasn't that how it went? It was, he thought. So many things had happened, so many things had happened since he'd last heard that voice, since he had last heard a single thing spoken in that soft, caring tone. It could grow so loud, it could reign over the masses and inspire so much it sparked a revolution. It could drive any to tears and just hearing it always made him want to talk alongside, say the words simultaneously, scream them, scream them to the heavens and the moons and the sky and solar system, scream them until everything in him so wound up, so taunt, simplysnapped, until he was ripping himself apart in bliss and clawing at that which made him feel so claustrophobic, so closed in. The voice had brought smiles to his face and pride swelling in his chest. It was a voice he sacrificed it all to protect, a voice he took all he could to keep pure, keep unblemished, uninjured. It was a voice he'd once snarled so harshly over that he spent a week listening to it gently berate him, soothing fingers rubbing his aching throat when it hurt so badly he could not sleep.

It was so foreign to try to imagine any voice past the witch's. Her tone was shrill and threatening, it could dip down deeper than any trench, it could boom out with just as much force as a tsunami crashing down upon the sand, pushing craters with it's wake and blanketing that beneath it. She was terrifying, she was magnificent and, in the end, everything about her was alluring. She was such a horror, a sharp, jagged smile that he almost feared would rip the very painted lips which concealed them. She was graceful in the way she walked, flowing as if riding a current of pure power, of pure control, yet, even as is, she lacked such control over herself. Mentally, she was a loud, raging torrent, rapids smashing into rocks and eachother and spiraling down, down into a black abyss so deep and cold that ice would form, only to be shattered and smashed by rip tides on it's unstable float back to the surface. She gave bodily life and took all else away, she sank her needle fangs into the flesh and lapped the blood and squeezed and squeezed, ruptured the body with her clenching in an attempt to get more, more was riding on the waves and swayed her hips in time with the tides, she turned on whirlpools and hurricane force gusts kicked up with every flick of her hair. A flare of the fins or the flutter of eyelashes and the entire universe was in ruin, drowning, suffocating under her pressure, under her force.  
She was his greatest fear and his blessed misery.  
She was all he had left.

There had been another, equally graceful, equally beautiful troll interlaced with that Once Upon A Time. She had been on so many different levels of such things, though, she defied that which the witch possessed, created her own gently swaying path through the forests and the underbrush. She'd been a gentle spring breeze, subdued laughter and a pleasant gaze, the breath of that which loved gently flowing through the empty places and filling them up, troubles and worries fluttering away in the wake of her kindness. She was that which blew the cherry blossoms pastel bodies, carried them and laid them to rest upon the ground below and returned to gust them back up, playfully bump them along to their future, sweep them out of way of danger and into new worlds, ready to be explored. She was green, a beautiful green. Jade, she was - Smooth, flowing. She was soft, springy moss growing welcome amongst the rocks, cushioning a fall and allowing a comfortable place to rest. She was fierce, she stood mutely, collected that around her behind her presence, wrapped around them, limbs flowing as they moved in rhythm. She reminded him of another language, of the way it felt to rub against something beautiful and shimmering, something solid yet yielding when need be. A woman that walked on gem stones and left warmth in her path, transformed pain and worry into a protective was gentle curves and flowed smoother than heavy milk, she smelt of the breeze and of protectively enclosed pastures, an open night sky and the chance to run and play. Her laugh had been the sound of wind chimes without the tinging harshness, and chiming of bells without the force needed to make such a noise, a newly formed music box with a beautiful dancing princess, of a ballerina on tiptoes and smooth flesh.  
She had been their castle walls, she had worn armor made of pure satin and fought silently with a sword of silk.  
She had been his mother, too.

Green could remind him of another, though she was not as dark and grasping as jade. That was a dirtier green, one which was dragged through the mud yet always brushed away the browns once back on her feet. She was fangs and claws, hair past her elbows and muscled, tensely sculpted figures. She was a huntress, full of balance and force. She could shove off and thrust forward, use her bare hands to tackle that which he yearned for, wrestle it to the ground and dispatch it. She was sweat dripping off the brow, a tongue flicking over chapped lips, narrowed eyes and anticipation coiling. She was not only of the wild, though, not only that which growled and pounced and ran away when others attempted to confine her. She was heavily down to the ground beneath her, she was earthy, riding atop a landslide no matter where she sprinted, but she was also reliable. She was a strong piece of ground, that which would not crumble when stomped upon. She would not sway, would fight and advance in the face of difficulty for the sake of being as she was. She could stop, she wouldstop, root herself in place and bounce on that point of being in anticipation. She was attentive, an ear for words, a memory that grasped that which she was given and tombed it away in her psyche. She'd pull the nails from those coffins and dredge up the corpses, record that which she found there detail by detail, conserve them for ages, preserve the words and stories and happenings in perfect condition. A book - She was a hardcover, leather bound novel of nondescript size, heavy enough to make a thud but filled with countless, weightless pages that even the barest flutter of a touch could turn. She was everything she was ever given and so much more, she kept all written within her soul, engraved upon her rock, hieroglyphics which survived endless ages and fought against wind and sand and water and salt, fought against all erosion and laughed when it threatened to nick her flesh. She was strength, she was power, a provider.  
She had been so much to that inspiring voice, she had been it's all. She'd been the blackhole which took all words spoken by that voice and pulled them in, only to spit them out on her own pages even as they were repeated to the universe.  
She had been his free spirit, his partner in protection.  
She had been the love of that most important to him.

And what had he been, in the grand scheme of things? He'd been a man of little worth, born to slavery and expected of from society. He'd been the strongest of his kind, forced to hone his skills and be raised in cruelty. He was yellow - He was the colour not of sunshine, but of harsh bulbs nearly burnt out. He bathed that which fell into his light in a ghastly tone, made it look harsher than it was, drained colour into it began to sharply blend in against itself. He was yellow, he was that which crashed to the ground and did not shatter, but slowly compressed from the weight of the atmosphere upon him. He'd been strong, he'd been a protector, a snarky attitude and a snorting laugh. He had been the troll to shake his head and wave off blissful ignorance, provide insight and pessimistic reality, he'd strained his eyes and pained his heart. He lacked beauty, he lacked grace. He was so little, he was but a charge of that mossy green and a protection all the same. He was crude, disgusting, that which was kicked away and too the trash and down through the sewers when all was said and done. Worthless unless needed. He'd become flesh entangled and penetrated by writhing wires and painful bioware, a living battery of questionable existence, questionable sanity. He'd never been a happy man, not until he'd found the colours which he'd swirled with and around to create one beautiful thing. He'd been a part of something, he'd been important, he'd been a man of his word and a man set free. But now - Now he was a part of the ship, a part of the helm. He powered that which took his everything away, that which extinguished all but the beating of his heart. He did not matter anymore, not to any cause he felt of worth. He had been something, Once Upon A Time, a something that had really thought Happily Ever After was his destiny.

What had he once been, what worth had he once had, where? Why, what his his reason, his purpose?

_Fingers tapped him on the shoulder from behind. He turned, was met with a bright smile and a friendly laugh, a rather bouncy teen about his age and an observant woman he had the indescribable urge to smile back at. He was asked a question, some inquiry of innocent nature._

Who was he?

_"The Psiioniic."_


End file.
